HE storm raged fiercely all that night, but nothing of
particular note occurred. The next morning, however, when they
came down to breakfast, they found the terrible stain of blood
once again on the floor. 'I don't think it can be the fault of
the Paragon Detergent,' said Washington, 'for I have tried it
with everything. It must be the ghost.' He accordingly rubbed
out the stain a second time, but the second morning it appeared
again. The third morning also it was there, though the library
had been locked up at night by Mr. Otis himself, and the key
carried upstairs. The whole family were now quite interested;
Mr. Otis began to suspect that he had been too dogmatic in his
denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis expressed her intention
of joining the Psychical Society, and Washington prepared a long
letter to Messrs. Myers and Podmore on the subject of the Permanence
of Sanguineous Stains when connected with Crime. That night all
doubts about the objective existence of phantasmata were removed
for ever.The day had been warm and sunny;
and, in the cool of the evening, the whole family went out for
a drive. They did not return home till nine o'clock, when they
had a light supper. The conversation in no way turned upon ghosts,
so there were not even those primary conditions of receptive
expectation which so often precede the presentation of psychical
phenomena. The subjects discussed, as I have since learned from
Mr. Otis, were merely such as form the ordinary conversation
of cultured Americans of the better class, such as the immense
superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport over Sarah Bernhardt as an
actress; the difficulty of obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes,
and hominy, even in the best English houses; the importance of
Boston in the development of the world-soul; the advantages of
the baggage check system in railway travelling; and the sweetness
of the New York accent as compared to the London drawl. No mention
at all was made of the supernatural, nor was Sir Simon de Canterville
alluded to in any way. At eleven o'clock the family retired,
and by half-past all the lights were out. Some time after, Mr.
Otis was awakened by a curious noise in the corridor, outside
his room. It sounded like the clank of metal, and seemed to be
coming nearer every moment. He got up at once, struck a match,
and looked at the time. It was exactly one o'clock. He was quite
calm, and felt his pulse, which was not at all feverish. The
strange noise still continued, and with it he heard distinctly
the sound of footsteps. He put on his slippers, took a small
oblong phial out of his dressing-case, and opened the door. Right
in front of him he saw, in the wan moonlight, an old man of terrible
aspect. His eyes were as red burning coals; long grey hair fell
over his shoulders in matted coils; his garments, which were
of antique cut, were soiled and ragged, and from his wrists and
ankles hung heavy manacles and rusty gyves.
'My dear sir,' said Mr. Otis,
'I really must insist on your oiling those chains, and have brought
you for that purpose a small bottle of the Tammany Rising Sun
Lubricator. It is said to be completely efficacious upon one
application, and there are several testimonials to that effect
on the wrapper from some of our most eminent native divines.
I shall leave it here for you by the bedroom candles, and will
be happy to supply you with more should you require it.' With
these words the United States Minister laid the bottle down on
a marble table, and, closing his door, retired to rest.
For a moment the Canterville
ghost stood quite motionless in natural indignation; then, dashing
the bottle violently upon the polished floor, he fled down the
corridor, uttering hollow groans, and emitting a ghastly green
light. Just, however, as he reached the top of the great oak
staircase, a door was flung open, two little white-robed figures
appeared, and a large pillow whizzed past his head! There was
evidently no time to be lost, so, hastily adopting the Fourth
Dimension of Space as a means of escape, he vanished through
the wainscoting, and the house became quite quiet.
On reaching a small secret chamber
in the left wing, he leaned up against a moonbeam to recover
his breath, and began to try and realise his position. Never,
in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years,
had he been so grossly insulted. He thought of the Dowager Duchess,
whom he had frightened into a fit as she stood before the glass
in her lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, who had gone
off into hysterics when he merely grinned at them through the
curtains of one of the spare bedrooms; of the rector of the parish,
whose candle he had blown out as he was coming late one night
from the library, and who had been under the care of Sir William
Gull ever since, a perfect martyr to nervous disorders; and of
old Madame de Tremouillac, who, having wakened up one morning
early and seen a skeleton seated in an arm-chair by the fire
reading her diary, had been confined to her bed for six weeks
with an attack of brain fever, and, on her recovery, had become
reconciled to the Church, and broken off her connection with
that notorious sceptic Monsieur de Voltaire. He remembered the
terrible night when the wicked Lord Canterville was found choking
in his dressing-room, with the knave of diamonds half-way down
his throat, and confessed, just before he died, that he had cheated
Charles James Fox out of 50,000 pounds at Crockford's by means
of that very card, and swore that the ghost had made him swallow
it. All his great achievements came back to him again, from the
butler who had shot himself in the pantry because he had seen
a green hand tapping at the window pane, to the beautiful Lady
Stutfield, who was always obliged to wear a black velvet band
round her throat to hide the mark of five fingers burnt upon
her white skin, and who drowned herself at last in the carp-pond
at the end of the King's Walk. With the enthusiastic egotism
of the true artist he went over his most celebrated performances,
and smiled bitterly to himself as he recalled to mind his last
appearance as 'Red Ruben, or the Strangled Babe,' his debut
as 'Gaunt Gibeon, the Blood-sucker of Bexley Moor,' and the furore
he had excited one lovely June evening by merely playing ninepins
with his own bones upon the lawn-tennis ground. And after all
this, some wretched modern Americans were to come and offer him
the Rising Sun Lubricator, and throw pillows at his head! It
was quite unbearable. Besides, no ghosts in history had ever
been treated in this manner. Accordingly, he determined to have
vengeance, and remained till daylight in an attitude of deep
thought.
[Chapter Three]
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